Political Watch 3/23/17

• President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 federal budget isn’t getting much love from California Sen. Kamala Harris (D). The budget, which Harris describes as cutting “core functions to the bone,” proposes cuts of $54 billion across every federal agency, except for the departments of Homeland Security, Defense, and Veterans Affairs. The Environmental Protection Agency received the biggest proposed cut at $2.6 billion, or a decrease in 31.4 percent from last year. The State Department comes next at $11 billion, or a 28.7 percent decrease. The Department of Health and Human Services—which implements the Affordable Care Act,  which Congressional Republicans want to “repeal and replace”—will see a reduction of $12.6 billion in funding, or a 16.2 percent decrease. Program cuts include the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which includes NPR and PBS), United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. “President Trump does not value government’s essential functions of public health, public safety, and public education,” Harris said in a statement. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) called Trump’s proposal a “travesty.” Also in the proposal: Trump is asking $2.6 billion from Congress to build his wall on the border of the U.S. and Mexico. Trump is already asking Congress for $1.5 billion in the form of a $30 billion supplemental spending request, according to The Hill. A preliminary internal report recently seen by Reuters showed that the wall is estimated to cost as much as $21.6 billion and take more than three years to build. The spending request keeps the government funded and lawmakers would need to approve it by April 28 or else the federal government will shut down. Already Democrats are saying they’ll resist the funding bill as long as the wall is included. Alaskan Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski criticized Trump’s proposal, telling Reuters that the cuts to programs that subsidize air travel and help the poor pay for their heat will affect residents in rural areas of her state. The budget covers the 2018 fiscal year, which starts on Oct. 1, 2017.

• On March 16, Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara), representative for the Central Coast’s 24th Congressional District, voted against the American Health Care Act, or the Congressional Republicans’ replacement for the Affordable Care Act, as it came out of the House Budget Committee, of which he is a member. He offered a few remarks on mental health care and health care costs for older Americans. “It makes dramatic changes to the nongroup market, provides insufficient subisides to purchase coverage, and guts $880 billion from Medicaid,” Carbajal said during committee hearings. “Many seniors live on fixed incomes and are already struggling to afford the cost of their health insurance.”

• On March 14, a bill by California state senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) to plug old, leaking oil wells passed the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee. Senate Bill 44, or the Coastal Oil Well Clean Up and Remediation Act, would require that the California State Lands Commission plug “orphaned” wells in state waters when the original oil company that operated the well is out of business and can’t be held responsible. The Commission identified approximately 200 such wells. SB 44 is a reintroduction of a bill Jackson proposed in 2016, but was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

• The next public hearing to discuss Santa Maria’s transition from at-large to district elections is scheduled for Thursday, March 30 at 5:30 p.m. at the Veteran’s Memorial Community Center located at 313 W. Tunnell St. The Santa Maria City Council adopted a resolution by a vote of 3-2 to move toward district elections at its meeting held on Feb. 21.

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